“I want to have the most technical finishes that I can” – Mikey Musumeci wants to build his submission gallery

Mikey Musumeci plans to build a resume of technical submissions under the ONE Championship banner.

‘Darth Rigatoni’ made his promotional debut in April 2022, defeating Masakazu Imanari with a rear-naked choke. In his second ONE Championship bout, the fan-favorite defeated Cleber Sousa by unanimous decision to become the inaugural ONE flyweight submission grappling world champion.

Since then, Musumeci has secured title defenses against Gantumur Bayanduuren, Osamah Almarwai, and Jarred Brooks, with the last two ending inside the distance. The American has established himself as a superstar, but he’s nowhere near satisfied with his resume.

During an interview with ONE, Mikey Musumeci had this to say about wanting to focus on winning matches with technical submissions:

“You'll see in jiu-jitsu, the standard choke is a rear naked choke on the chin, like just crushing somebody's face. Like, it's ridiculous. Like you know how much change it takes to just squeeze somebody's face.”

Musumeci continued:

“So I think that there's still a huge amount of just forcing submissions in no-gi and I'm on this path where I want to have the most technical finishes that I can. Where I use my body in the maximal way to get the amount of leverage I need to finish a guy bigger than me, so it's definitely a puzzle for me and it definitely makes it like a cool science experiment.”

On Friday, October 6, Mikey Musumeci returns to action in a non-title submission grappling match. Instead, the 27-year-old is scheduled to face Japanese legend Shinya Aoki in an openweight bout.

Aoki is arguably the best pure grappler in MMA history, and he’s showcased his world-class grappling skills throughout his 58-fight MMA career with an absurd 30 submission wins to his record.

Mikey Musumeci vs. Shinya Aoki goes down inside the legendary Lumpinee Boxing Stadium as a part of ONE Fight Night 15. The event featuring two world title matchups can be seen live and for free by North American viewers with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription.